Motor Mouth: Polestar’s EV revolution starts with a 600-HP sports car

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Volvo's performance division is not only ushering in a new era for powertrains, it's also changing how we "own" cars

by
David Booth | October 17, 2017

Small

Medium

Large

For years, environmentalists have been wondering when one of the major car companies was going to commit completely to the electrical revolution. By their estimation, the response by giants such as Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Porsche and Audi has been tepid; even Volkswagen’s promise that 25 per cent of its fleet being electric by 2025 has been deemed mere toe-in-the-EV-water while it continues to wring corporate profits out of the infernal combustion engine. Nothing short of the full Tesla would do; anything less than all-electric, all the time just the same everyday smoke and mirror show masking the corporate greed common to all automakers.

Well, it looks like they finally got their wish.

Accompanied by promises of “no make-up, no overpromising and no shortcuts,” Polestar just announced that its future would be all-electric. Oh, the company’s first car — it’s simply called the Polestar 1, at least delivering on the “no buzzwords” part of its promise — on stage in Shanghai’s Yuz Museum Theatre was a 600-horsepower super-hybrid (albeit with 150 kilometres of promised electrically powered range and no less than two electric motors). But newly appointed CEO Thomas Ingenlath also stated uncategorically that “all future cars from Polestar will feature a fully electric drivetrain, delivering on our brand vision of being the new standalone electric performance brand” before detailing that the equally blandly named Polestar 2 —“no bullshit” being another of Polestar’s promises — will be a Tesla Model 3 competitor and the future Polestar 3 will be a Model X-like SUV. Again, all-electric.

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Polestar 1

Handout, Polestar

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell is Polestar. After all, I did promise a major automaker, didn’t I? And unless you’re a fan of Swedish performance cars — is there really such a thing? — you probably haven’t heard of a car company named Star, Pole or otherwise.

That’s because Polestar is Volvo’s performance division, the Scandinavian equivalent of Mercedes’ AMG or BMW’s M. And while it’s been a low-key presence so far in this country — the only products currently marketed under the Polestar brand are the turbo-and-supercharged S60 and V60 duo — it’s about to, I suspect, explode onto the Canadian scene in a very big way.

That’s because not only is the company committing 100 per cent to electric motivation, it’s not actually in the business of selling cars. Nope, no matter how much money you have, you can’t actually buy a Polestar — you have to subscribe to it!

RELATED

Yes, all Polestar-branded cars starting with the, uhm, 1, will be available on a subscription basis only. Essentially, for one monthly fee, Polestar will supply you with a car plus all service and maintenance. Even insurance will be included in your subscription. Polestar also promises that should you want an accessory, say a “roof box for an upcoming ski holiday” as per its own example, a Polestar technician will come to you, fit — and then later remove — said roof box, “just adding a small incremental usage charge to their monthly invoice.” In fact, Polestar brags that owners will never, ever, have to visit a dealer.

That’s good because, according to Ingenlath, there will be no Polestar dealers, all interaction between the company and the customer accomplished through the internet via the company’s new phone-as-key technology. Even buying a Polestar is done electronically, through an app available for either Apple or Android phones. And, at the end of the two- or three-year “subscription” — don’t call it a lease — you simply return the car and, hopefully (at least Ingenlath hopes), you will subscribe to another Polestar. Your old ride is then refurbished and put out for a secondary subscription — again, not sold — and the cycle continues.

Now, for the folks who read this column at least semi-regularly, this is Volvo buying into the full Tony Seba, the San Francisco author/thought leader/Tony-Robbins-like-huckster who promises that not only will all cars be electric by 2025 because no one will want to buy gas-powered automobiles, but there also won’t be any be any dealers to sell them because they’ve all gone out of business.

Polestar 1

It’s a huge bet, especially when you consider that the company’s first product, the 600-horsepower Polestar 1, is, as aforementioned, a plug-in hybrid that combines a supercharged and turbocharged gasoline engine with twin electric motors and enough lithium-ion for 150 kilometres of range. The body is built from carbon fibre, features stopping power from boutique braking manufacturer Akebono, and is the very first sports car at any price to offer Ohlins’ latest Continuously Controlled Electronic Suspension (CESi). Think of it as a hybridized, Swedish Nissan GT-R.

This means that, were it for sale – and as I have conspicuously noted, it most definitely is not – the Polestar 1 would easily cost in the neighbourhood of $150,000 to $200,000 (by way of comparison, a common gas-fed V60 Polestar starts at around $70,000). Now, throw in all those subscription goodies and, no matter how you do the math, owners – sorry, subscribers – aren’t getting much change from a $4K or $5K monthly stipend.

So, this is what uncompromised commitment looks like, folks, the car company equivalent of James Bond going “all in” in Casino Royale. I also suspect that it will be an abject lesson in what the promised future of electric motivation and subscription-based automobile “ownership” will cost. Parent company Volvo, unlike Tesla (which, according to one estimation released last week, has now lost US$10.6-billion), will need to show a profit on each and every Polestar produced.

RELATED

So, once the upstart EV maker moves past its limited production 1 — the company promises to produce only 500 hyper-hybrids a year — into the more broadly-marketed 2 and 3, we will have a better idea of whether the promised electric/subscription revolution really is affordable.

One final caveat: While all the various in-house tuning houses — notably Mercedes’s AMG and BMW’s M — profess complete independence, Polestar really is living it. The company has its own management, marketing and even public relations teams and is, by all accounts, planning its future almost completely autonomously from Volvo while still enjoying the funding and technical expertise of the automotive giant.

That may be a dream come true for a fledgling company trying to stake out its place in a revolution, but it should be noted, it also gives Volvo a convenient out should said metamorphosis fizzle. Let the revolution begin!